Dead Space: Friendship is Dismembered
by I have a jar of dirt
Summary: Twilight Sparkle accidentally finds herself on the Kellion, with a puzzled crew on the way to reestablish contact with the USG Ishimura. Disaster strikes however, and alongside Isaac Clarke, Twilight tries to survive the horrors that lurk the ship...
1. Prologue

Systems engineer Isaac Clarke had always loved space, be it in his living room, his life or the cold void separating the elements right outside his thick plexiglas window. Even though his habitat on Titan Station was temporary, he would often enjoy the gigantic view it offered of Saturn and it's moons, pondering on all sorts of matters while passively witnessing the movement of the celestial bodies. Nicole had always teased him about her finding Isaac staring out the panoramic window for almost half a hour, playfully complaining that he would probably stay there for the rest of his life if she didn't coax him out of there.

_Speaking of Nicole..._

Isaac set his coffee mug on the table again and sat down heavily in the leather chair, rubbing his haggard face and blinking tiredly for having stared at the holoscreen for too long in his darkened apartment. He gazed at it again, the video of that his beloved Nicole had sent him before he lost all ability to contact her, his finger pressing the play button again.

"_Isaac, it's me... I wish I could talk to you..._" She had sounded so sad, so tired on that recording. "_I'm sorry... I'm sorry for everything... I wish I could just talk to someone-_"

He stopped the video again and sighed. No matter how many times he had watched her apologize, he could never bring himself to see through the entire recording. Isaac silently cursed himself for being so weak. Why? Why was it so hard to listen to her?

Before he could decide to ponder on the matter further, the bottom left of his screen flashed green, indicating someone wanted to call him. The visage of Isaac's friend Zach Hammond sprung up.

"_Issac! I have some good news for you._" Isaac frowned slightly; hearing what Hammond had to say was a bit hard for all the background noise. Was he at the docks? "_The CEC finally pulled the thumb out of their ass and decided to send us to investigate the Ishimura, departure tomorrow morning._"

Isaac's heart was suddenly filled with joy and relief. Finally he could see Nicole again. "Where and when?"

"_At ten o'clock,_" the security officer responded. "_We'll be taking the USG Kellion for this trip, dock 5, hangar bay 3. Kendra will be coming with us too._"

Isaac took a swig of his coffee before cracking a playful grin. "Heh. We'll see how long it will take before you two start getting at each other like a married couple." Hammond shot the engineer an annoyed glare before smirking.

"_Well, we'll be traveling for about a week, so we shall see who will get the most annoyed at the end._" Isaac made a mock sigh before raising an eyebrow.

"Wait, did you say a week of Shockpoint travel time? I didn't know the Ishimura was that far away..."

"_Truth be told, I don't know much either,_" Hammond shrugged. "_All info the CEC higher-ups sent me was on a strict need-to-know basis. All I know is that we will be going to Aegis 7._"

"That's practically on the edges of unexplored space..."

Hammond shrugged again. "_As I said, I don't know that much. We'll probably be briefed more in-depth on the way, I hope._" He gave Isaac a sympathetic smile. "_Get some rest, Isaac, and don't worry. I'm sure Nicole will be fine._"

Suddenly reminded of his fatigue, Isaac rubbed his eyes. "Yeah, you're probably right... G'night, Zach."

"_Good night, Isaac._" And with those parting words, the feed stopped.

Yawning audibly, Isaac stretched himself before emptying his coffee and shutting down the holoscreen. As he crawled into bed and let sleep overtake him, he could still not remove Nicole from his thoughts.

_I hope you're right Hammond... I hope you're right._

* * *

Night had fallen upon the idyllic town of Ponyville, it's inhabitants soundly asleep in their homes.

Well, almost everypony.

Twilight Sparkle was sitting comfortably in her couch by the fireplace, engrossed in an ancient magic book written by none other than Star Swirl the bearded. Her eyes darted quickly across the written lines, literally soaking up information from it. After a few minutes of reading, she closed the book and submersed herself in her thoughts.

It had been a fascinating lecture, detailing many aspects about parallel universes, time travel and long-range teleportation. Much of Star Swirl's notes talked about fantastic worlds with strange creatures and foreign technology and magics. Twilight felt as giddy as a school filly. Imagine what she could learn from the civilizations, study their artifacts and societies, perhaps even bring them along to Equestria!

The librarian opened her book again at one chapter dedicated to some extraequestrians called "humans". She could easily understand how excited Lyra had been when the green unicorn had borrowed the book; a race completely devoid of magic, and yet had achieved marvelous technological advances, such as sending manned vehicles to the moon, or harnessing the very power of fission. Star Swirl had written in his observations that provided these humans could set aside their differences, they could conquer their solar system.

_Those notes were scribbled down 500 years ago_, the purple unicorn pondered. _Imagine how advanced they could be now!_

Twilight slowly set the book aside again and climbed up to her bedroom as quietly as possible. She opened the door ever so slightly and peeked inside towards Spike's bed, happy to see that her dragon assistant was soundly asleep. Content, she closed the door carefully again and returned the book to it's place in the bookcase.

Something in her mind urged her to actually visit an alternate universe just now, to discover new places where no pony had gone before. She quickly sat aside that thought, but the temptation eventually grew too strong. She sighed.

_Well, I guess a quick peek wouldn't do too much damage..._

The librarian decided that while it would not be wise to directly jump into whatever dimension these humans existed in, she could always do a "sneak peek" spell, meaning she would be able to at least passively observe what was on the other side for a short time, much like a magnifying glass. It would probably be harmless anyway, so she elected not to pack anything for the moment.

Twilight mentally prepared herself. The spell in question required her full concentration and large amounts of magic, so she would probably be exhausted by the time she successfully completed it. Another problem would be the location; while Twilight already knew she wanted to visit the humans, directly controlling where she would end up was impossible at the time since she had never actually been there yet. The unicorn hoped that it would be some place of interest at least, so that she could have some sort of point of reference in the future event that she would ever want to travel completely to their universe.

Frowning in concentration, Twilight gathered energy for the spell, her horn glowing brighter by the second. Finally, the purple light illuminated the entire room. Struggling to accumulate enough energy, Twilight gritted her teeth.

_Almost... There..._

Unfortunately, the faintest of uncertainty crossed Twilight's mind at that time. Her focus wavered and she lost control, the magical energy flowing wildly across the room as it was engulfed in light. She barely had time to scream until the maelstrom of power hit her, and she vanished.

* * *

Isaac walked down the walkway of dock five, his class 3 engineering suit already donned and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, towards the hangar bay where Hammond and Kendra awaited him. The two were discussing something when the latter noticed Isaac and waved him over.

"Isaac! Over here!"

"Hey Hammond, Kendra," he nodded curtly.

"We'll be leaving soon," Hammond interjected. "As soon as Chen and Johnston finish with the maintenance procedures, we'll be good to go."

Isaac nodded again before motioning for his bag. "Mind if I take it inside? I'm just gonna pack up my things."

"Sure," Kendra replied. "You're sharing your cot with Hammond. You boys have room number two, down one level."

Isaac groaned. "We'll be sleeping close to the engines?" Hammond chuckled.

"Don't worry. I brought some earplugs for you."

Isaac offered a small thanks before heading inside, noticing the other two security officers already at their seats. They waved towards each other before he climbed down the ladder towards his and Hammond's room, a feat not so easily made because of his suit. It was a cramped place with a hastily arranged bunk bed and a fridge, with a few of Hammond's possessions arranged across the room. The engineer noticed his friend's pulse rifle was hanging in an alcove above a small door leading to a storage compartment. Isaac was just about to open it when Kendra called him from above. Shrugging, he simply removed his helmet and tossed it alongside the duffel bag onto the floor before climbing up the ladder again.

Isaac made his way to the cockpit, where the final preparations for leaving were made. After confirming that they were cleared to leave the bay by Titan Station control, the Kellion shook slightly from the docking clamps being released before the ship left the dock. Isaac sat down, making himself comfortable for the FTL transition.

"Spinning up the Schockpoint drive," Chen announced.

With a lurch, the very fabric of time and space tore apart in front of the Kellion, letting the ship through the wormhole before closing up again.

"And we're through."

Isaac sighed before standing up again and headed for his room. "I'm going to pack up my things."

He made his way down again, picking up his bag and started unpacking his belongings. Several packaged, tasteless, standard issue CEC foodstuffs were set aside to be put later on into the fridge. He then skimmed through his clothing (Isaac had heard that the Ishimura had some decent restaurants aboard, so he had brought along a nice suit when he would take out Nicole next week) and withdrew his holocommunication device before slotting it into his engineering suit. He made a quick checkup and was satisfied that it worked. He then proceeded to repack what wasn't needed right now and closed the bag before opening the storage compartment.

He wasn't exactly prepared for what he found inside.

"What the hell?"

* * *

Twilight awoke from her slumber, her brain pounding against her inner head cavities like a hammer. The spell had taken quite the toll on her and she had fallen unconscious as soon as she had made the trip through the universes.

_Oh Celestia, I really bucked up this time..._

She had only just woken up when the ground shook for some unknown reason.

Shaking her head, Twilight took a good look around her surroundings. Her heart sank when she discovered she was apparently trapped in some sort of cramped, dark room along with several bags, with the sound of machinery echoing behind her. Fear made it's way through her stomach. Had she been captured and imprisoned?

Twilight momentarily lost her footing when her cell shook again, sending her falling onto the bags. What kind of prison even does that, anyway?

She heard something climb down to her level and froze. Whatever it was, she could only hear it shuffling around she guessed was packages. A door opened with a peculiar sound before closing again, and the rustling sounds returned.

It stopped suddenly, and Twilight realized in fear that the sound of footsteps were approaching her. One of the walls opened, letting through some light and dazzling Twilight.

"What the hell?"

After her eyes got used to the harsh lightning, the unicorn raised her head. Standing twice as tall as her was a creature that matched the description of a human. It stood on two legs, with two arms on which sat a pair of hands with five digits each. Staring down at her in a state of utter confusion was a rather beige face, with a very short black mane on top and blueish green eyes. The human wore a strange suit made of some unknown fabric, with several metal paddings covering his torso and right arm. His boots were also made of the same material, along with some metal... Thing jutting out of his torso.

_Is it... Glowing? How do they do that without magic?_

Since the human had yet to attack her, she assumed that it wasn't hostile. She overcame her initial fear, cleared her throat and spoke up.

"Uh... Hello?"

The human seemed to make a double take, his eyes widening in surprise. "Holy shit!" It- He exclaimed in a male voice. "You can talk?"

Twilight sighed mentally in relief. At least he understood her. "Uh, yes, I can talk. My name is Twilight Sparkle, I'm a unicorn and... it's a pleasure to meet you!"

She extended her hoof, an awkward smile upon her face. The human stared at her hoof for a few seconds before tentatively extending his own hand and shaking it. Twilight winced. He had quite the grip...

* * *

Isaac was dumbfounded. He had never expected to find a talking unicorn in the closet. If he hadn't shook hands with it for real, he could have sworn Hammond had slipped something into his morning coffee...

And suddenly he was assaulted with questions.

"So, not to bother you or anything, but do you mind telling me where we are? What's your name? What is that thing you're wearing? Do all humans dress like this? Is it the latest fashion? All our recorded knowledge of humans was written five hundred years ago anyway, so much must have happened since then. How does it glow without any magic? Did you really send people to the moon? Did you build more spaceships? Are we on a spaceship right now? Building spaceships must present enormous challenges. I sure hope to find some book that can tell me how to build one. I am rambling right now aren't I?"

Recovering from his literal verbal assault, Isaac noticed the unicorn was putting up a rather innocent smile. He sighed before shouting up to the others.

"Hammond? Kendra?"

"Yeah?"

"...I think we have a complication here."


	2. New Arrivals, part 1

**WARNING: IDIOTIC PLOT DEVICE AHEAD**

Twilight, Isaac and the rest of the crew had gathered together at the main deck to discuss the events that had transpired. After the initial confusion and explanations from the unicorn of who and what she was, where she came from and how she had ended up with them, the mood had lightened a little bit.

"So let me get this straight..." Isaac threw up his hand. "You lived in a place populated by magical ponies."

"Yes."

"You were going to attempt a spell to teleport across realities."

"Well, more of a spell that allows me to passively observe what happens through realities, but yes."

"You botched up, and you landed in our storage room."

Twilight grinned sheepishly, scratching her neck with her hoof. "Well... Yeah."

The engineer sighed again and rubbed his face while Chen and Johnston glanced at each other. Kendra leaned forward, muttering something about impossibilities, while Hammond simply stood beside, a bemused expression upon his face. Suddenly, Kendra's head perked up again.

"So you say you can preform magic too?"

Twilight vigorously nodded. "Sure! Here, let me show you." Her horn started glowing purple and several tools were levitated in the air. All the humans looked on with fascinated expressions at the display.

"Impressive," Hammond gasped. "That's like a mind-controlled kinesis tool!"

"You know you could just call it telekinesis, Hammond," Kendra scoffed.

The officer shot her a glare before continuing. "So, what are you going to do?"

Twilight shuffled her hoof across the floor. "Well... As much as I would like to stay and study about everything here, I bet my friends will be worried about me right now. I need to go back, I'm afraid."

Isaac raised an eyebrow. "You'll be doing it right now?"

"Yes," Twilight replied. "The sooner I do it, the better." She shot them an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I really would have wanted to talk a bit more..."

Isaac simply cocked his head to the side. "Uh, well, don't worry. We'll... Um..." Damn it, what was he supposed to answer in a situation like this?

Without warning, a beam of light formed around the unicorn's horn, once again attempting to preform the spell that had sent her here. Everyone covered their eyes when the beam grew even brighter. Twilight prepared herself, the magical power growing even stronger...

...And then it fizzled out.

Twilight blinked in surprise while the rest of the crew simply stared in confusion.

"Wh- What? I can't do it!"

"Are you alright?" Isaac asked.

The mare began pacing around frantically, her mind desperately searching for an answer to her problem. "But... There shouldn't be any problem with that... Star Swirl wrote that the only way to fail except for losing one's concentration is to not be in the reality you were supposed to teleport from..."

Something clicked in her mind. She raced between the puzzled humans towards the viewing port of the cockpit before realizing that she was not staring out into space; at least not what ponies perceived as space. The craft was moving through some ethereal haze, blue rings occasionally passing around the ship. It almost looked like they were traversing a tunnel...

"This isn't normal..."

"Not technically no," Isaac answered her. She turned her head around. "We're in hyperspace right now. It's our means of traveling quickly across the galaxy."

He almost swore he saw a lightbulb appear above Twilight's head.

"Of course..." She finally said. "If we are not in the normal reality I teleported in, it would be impossible for me to go home unless we go back to normal space... Ugh, this hurts my head." She rubbed her face before turning towards Hammond again. "How long will it take until we return to normal again?"

Hammond sighed and leaned himself towards the wall. "We're on a repair mission right now to the fringes of our territory, so we will be traveling in hyperspace for a week."

Twilight gasped; it felt like a kick to the stomach to hear that. "What? Oh no! They will be worried sick about me at home."

Hammond shrugged before giving her an apologetic look. "We're sorry miss Sparkle, but we cannot abort at this time. You will have to wait until we arrive at destination." She sighed in defeat.

"I understand. I'm sorry for all this."

Hammond smiled. "Don't worry. You have nothing to apologize for." Kendra nudged him in the back to gain his attention.

"So how are we going to organize everything then? Our oxygen and food supplies should be enough for one extra passenger, but she has no place to sleep..."

"No problem," Twilight reassured. "I could just sleep here in the..."

"In the cockpit," Isaac clarified.

"Right! What a strange name, by the way." Her eyes darted around the "cockpit", taking interest in all the navigational equipment. "I don't suppose you have any kind of non-fiction books here? Well, fiction is fine too, but I'd like to know more about how stuff works around here, if you catch my drift."

Kendra turned towards a nearby computer monitor and began working on it, attracting Twilight's interest. Her hands skillfully sifted for information before finding something that might please Twilight.

"We have access to several handbooks and fact literature here, everything from how Shockpoint and spaceships work to guides about our history and culture. Is that good enough for you?"

Twilight eyes widened. "You have entire libraries in these glowing things?" Kendra chuckled.

"Well, it's only really information stored in interesting ways. See here?" She swiped her hand across the screen. "You look through the database like this, and when you want to read something you just press on it..."

* * *

Several hours had already passed. Twilight Sparkle felt like a school filly, plowing through the databanks and swallowing information like Pinkie Pie gobbled up cupcakes. She read about that had happened in human history since the time Star Swirl had visited the planet; everything from humankind leaving Earth for the stars and the construction of the USG Ishimura, to the foundations of the church of Unitology based on the preachings of Michael Altman, up until now, to one of humanity's golden ages. She then decided to turn her attention to the more technical and practical aspects of everyday life, from the gargantuan constructions like Titan Station, to the technologically impressive powered suits soldiers and engineers like Isaac bore, which she found to be especially extraordinary. Finally she decided to read up about society and how EarthGov, the CEC and the Church operated.

Twilight shook in excitement. So much knowledge was at the tips of her hooves!

She composed herself. These humans had gone through quite rough times. Unitology unsettled her the most; she shivered when reading through the bloody riots that had occurred when Altman had mysteriously died and the message of "transcendence after death" they preached about did little to alleviate her mind. Another thing that had stunned her was the planetcracker ships: behemoths in space capable of ripping through the very crust of a world and lift it into space. She had found recorded footage of the Ishimura cracking open a planet, the demonstration of industrialized force leaving her fascinated, shocked and quite frankly scared.

She gulped. _Imagine one of these ships removing Equestria from the map..._

"Are you feeling alright?"

She turned towards Isaac, a concerned frown upon his face.

"No! I mean, yes, I am feeling okay. I just saw... One of those planetcrackers rip up an entire planet, and it stunned me a bit. Nothing serious." She dismissed with her hoof. Isaac shrugged.

"Okay then."

"Out of curiosity, where exactly are we going and what are we doing?"

"We lost contact with the USG Ishimura a few weeks ago," Isaac explained. "We've been sent to help repair whatever went wrong, and then we'll return home. Simple as that."

Twilight couldn't help but notice the sad frown upon Isaac's face. "You look worried."

Isaac's shoulders fell. "Well... My fiancee, Nicole, is working onboard the ship as a medical expert. I just hope she's alright." Twilight gave him a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry, I'm sure she's fine."

Isaac chuckled. "Yeah. You're right. I'm probably over-thinking this, you know? Thanks."

He caught Twilight staring at him attentively. "I know I'm good looking, but I already told you that I'm engaged you know," he joked. A slight blush colored the unicorn's face.

"N- no, it's not that," she sputtered. "I'm just observing your suit, that's all."

"You like it?"

"They're fantastic!" She exclaimed. "So much stuff built into them... I'd want one myself, you know!" She shook her head. "Oh gosh, I shouldn't say that. I just thought that maybe since I'm staying here for a while, I could bring something home to show to the princesses and my friends."

Isaac raised his eyebrow and scratched his chin, pondering on the topic for a while. "You know, I think we might have a spare suit somewhere..."

Twilight's head shot up immediately in excitement. "You do?" She then calmed down a bit. "Oh, well, I am grateful, but you really shouldn't bother..."

Isaac chuckled again. "Nah, it's fine. It's an older model anyway. Besides, while I accommodate it to fit your size it should give me something to do; remove my worries of Nicole from my mind for a while."

Twilight flashed Isaac a radiant smile. "Thanks Isaac. You're a good friend." He was a bit surprised to already be considered as such, but he let it slide.

"Sure. I'll start right away if you want."

* * *

The days passed quickly. Twilight spent most of her days in front of the computer reading (she had discovered the wonders of the galactic extranet and was both amused and dumbfounded by all the news and stories she could find), checking on Isaac's progress on her RIG, small talking with the rest of the crew or occasionally playing chess with them. She had warmed up a lot to the men onboard, but she still counted Kendra as her best friend; they would both spend most of their time with each other, discussing several topics and laughing together. Kendra even taught Twilight some very basic programming, which the unicorn eagerly learned but had a bit of trouble practicing because the keyboard was hardly compatible with hooves.

On the fifth day, Isaac had completed the modifications to Twilight's suit. It was a slightly up-armored variant of the grade 1 maintenance suit, with a few metallic segments covering the body and arms and the underlying fabric covering the tail; the helmet had been slightly elongated to fit her muzzle (something that the engineer had struggled with for a while), and the top had been changed to fit over Twilight's head, including her horn. Twilight was very thankful towards Isaac when she tried it on, to which he replied that it was simply her idea from the beginning. The suit fit her tightly, but the engineer simply shrugged and said "you'll get used to it."

On the seventh day, they arrived at destination.

The Kellion exited hyperspace, the normal universe appearing like a light at the end of the tunnel. Twilight, still dressed in her suit, gasped at the beauty of the scene. The system's sun was partially hidden behind the planet Aegis VII, the bright rays illuminating the crimson surface. Large pieces of debris spun lazily around it in orbit, while a gigantic crater pockmarked the surface of the red world, which Twilight guessed was where the Ishimura had mined. "Wow," she whispered.

If only the rest of them at home could see this...

"Alright everyone we're here," Hammond announced. "Syncing your orbit now."

"All this trouble over that chunk of rock..."

"Deep-space mining is a lucrative business, miss Daniels," Hammond responded, his tone suddenly very serious."Aegis VII is a gold mine, according to prospector's reports. Cobalt, silicon, osmium... Now where is she?"

The Kellion made it's way slowly towards the debris field. Twilight could suddenly see something appear behind an asteroid.

The USG Ishimura was revealed to them in all it's glory. It was a massive construct, like a huge metallic ribcage, with the oversized quadruple engines installed behind it. Four appendages stuck out of the underside, which Twilight had read were the gravity tethers that could pull up the planetary crust. She felt excited; finally she would step inside the first planetcracker ship to have been built by the humans. Behind her, Isaac simply stared at it, deep in thought into something.

"There she is, we have visual contact."

"So that's the Ishimura?" Kendra asked. "Impressive."

"The USG Ishimura," Hammond quickly corrected her. "Biggest planetcracker in her class. And it looks like they already popped the cork."

Kendra approached the viewing port and squinted. "Why is it all dark? I don't see any running lights."

"Corporal take us in closer and hail them," Hammond ordered Chen. "And stay clear of that debris field, we're here to fix their ship, not ours."

While the pilot navigated towards the larger vessel, Johnston began recording their message. "USG Ishimura, this is the USG kellion to your emergency distress call. Come in Ishimura."

"You're gonna need to boost the signal if the power's low-"

"Yes we know," Hammond interrupted. "Boost the signal. More."

Twilight approached the window to get a better view. They were drawing nearer to the exterior hull now; she could see that the ship was indeed completely dark, laying still in space. It felt a bit unsettling.

"Never heard of a total communications blackout on one of these things," Kendra mused. "You'd think that with a thousand people onboard, someone would pick up the phone..."

The dashboard lit up and played the Ishimura's response, although it was completely intelligible.

"What is that?"

"It's a busted array, like we thought," Kendra answered. "Sounds like they're having problem with their encoder. You get us down there and Isaac and I can fix it, 48 hours max."

"Alright you heard the lady," Hammond ordered Chen again. "Take us in and see what needs fixing."

The asian pilot pressed in a couple of commands on his screen, the ship shaking slightly and being surrounded with a blue glow. "Gravity tethers engaged, automatic docking procedures is a go."

The ship was suddenly rocked violently and something to their starboard exploded. Alarms blared across the ship while everybody desperately tried to hold on to something.

"What the hell?"

"Sir, the autodock-"

"What is it?"

"We're off track! We're gonna hit the hull!"

"Hit the blast shields!"

Chen desperately maneuvered the Kellion across the Ishimura's hull, trying hard not to crash into the ship. Twilight clung herself tightly to a hold, her heart pounding in her chest with fear. "Their guidance system is damaged," Hammond said. "Switch to manual now!"

"Inside the magnetic field? Are you insane!" Kendra shouted. "Abort!"

"NO! We can make it inside! Corporal, I gave you an order!"

The cockpit sealed itself to protect the occupants from any potential crash while a holoscreen appared up. The pilot desperately typed out commands to somehow break their descent, but it was in vain.

"Agh, the field's too strong!"

The Kellion shook violently as it crashed into the Ishimura's loading bay, throwing around it's passengers. Twilight lost her grip and was flung against the wall, smashing her head and falling unconscious.

Twilight woke up with a dull headache for the second time in a week. While she had slammed her head pretty hard, she was relieved not to feel any graver injuries upon her person.

Isaac was pretty shaken up but had thankfully not hurt himself in the crash. He shook his head and panted out, the adrenaline slowly settling down.

"You okay Twilight?"

"I think so."

They were relieved to find the rest of the crew to be okay, although they were coughing heavily for the smoke that had settled in the air. Hammond straightened himself up.

"Is everyone okay?"

Kendra faced around for a bit before confronting him. "What? What the hell were you thinking? Were you trying to get us killed?"

"I just saved our asses miss Daniels," Hammond retorted. "If he had aborted at that speed and distance we would have smashed right into the side of the Ishimura. Now settle down, and let's get to work." He turned towards Chen again while Isaac stood up and donned his helmet along with Twilight. "Corporal, report."

"I'm not getting any readings from the port booster and we've lost comms and autopilot. It'll take some time to fix."

"Alright, let's get some extra hands from flight deck to help us out."

Kendra approached Twilight and Isaac. "Hold still, I'm syncing up everyone's RIGs to the ship." She proceeded to activate both Isaac's and Twilight's suits. The health bars on their backs activated while their RIGs booted up, feeding them live info and the others heart monitors through their helmets. Twilight couldn't help but feel electrified at this. Her suit was actually working! "Okay, we're done. Clean bill of health for everyone."

"This is fantastic!"

Kendra smiled gently. "Glad you like it."

"All right everyone," Hammond commanded, "we've still got a job to do. We are moving out."

As everyone exited the ship, Twilight couldn't help but to stare at the size of the hangar bay the had crashed into. Humans sure liked to build big...

The suit was a bit bulky, but it was far lighter than Twilight would have expected from what was basically body armor for engineers. She walked around a bit to get used to the feeling before following the rest. She noticed Kendra scowling at something.

"You didn't lose power to the port booster, you _lost_ the port booster. Unbelievable."

They continued to walk down the hangar. The place was strangely quiet, except for a screen that had lit up and was broadcasting a pre-recorded message that welcomed them onboard. The crew gathered around a locked door.

"You sure it will be wise to bring her along boss?" Johnston pointed towards Twilight. "I don't know how people will react to her."

Hammond turned towards her. "I think he's right, miss Sparkle. Sorry, but you will have to step aside for a little while here."

Twilight huffed but didn't press the matter further; she could see the logic in it. She sat down onto a bench and waited patiently while Isaac opened the door and the rest stepped into the flight lounge.

The place was suspiciously empty. Kendra waved Twilight in so that she could see; not a single soul could be seen anywhere. Random luggage was scattered everywhere on the floor, and they noticed that there was a faint smell of dust in the air.

"Seems like everyone was trying to pack in a hurry," Kendra observed. Hammond eyed the surroundings suspiciously.

"There should be a security detail in here..."

"Yeah? Well there's not. There's nobody here. I can't pick up any broadcasts."

Hammond discovered a console behind the window of a checkpoint.

"That security console is still active. Isaac, get over there and see what you can find. Kendra, get that elevator back online." Twilight decided on a hunch to follow him.

"Power's dead! I can't!"

"Then reroute the damn power!"

Everyone stopped and stared at Hammond. He drew out a long sigh. "Look if we all cooperate, we can get through this. Isaac get to that console."

Isaac nodded before opening the door to the security checkpoint with Twilight in tow. As he brought it up, the entire screen expanded and showed a representation of the Ishimura, with several areas highlighted in flashing red. Johnston approached the screen from his side of the glass.

"Huh. That doesn't look good. She's taken a lot of damage."

"The tram system's offline," Hammond remarked. "Getting around is going to be difficult-"

The fans suddenly came online.

"The air seems to be flowing again. That's a start."

Alarms blared out of nowhere, the room losing all lights except for the orange warning lights turning overhead. Everyone tensed, the security officers bringing up their pulse rifles.

"What the hell was that?"

"Quarantine must have settled in once the ventilation started working," Hammond reassured. "Everybody relax."

The sound of... Something crawling around overhead reached their ears. Isaac fidgeted nervously while Twilight gulped, subconsciously shifting closer to him. The rest looked nervously around the room. Kendra was frozen in place, her eyes darting around everywhere.

"What was that? Did you hear that?"

The sound of a vent breaking overhead reached their ears. Isaac tried to determine the location of the noise. Trying to see anything was hard in the darkness; she could barely make out the silhouettes of Johnston and Chen, and he knew Kendra and Hammond were in the corner. Twilight was behind him, nervously pacing around.

Something caught his eye. A vaguely humanoid shape rose from the floor, yet something felt very wrong with it. Like if it wasn't fully human. The figure slowly approached Johnston's silhouette in the darkness and raised it's arms. There was a glint in the darkness.

In horror, the engineer realized that those were not hands at all, but sharp, wickedly-looking blades.

Before Isaac could shout out a warning, the thing burrowed its appendages into the unsuspecting Johnston. He could hear Twilight cry out in fear as blood splattered the window and the poor man's vitals flatlined, the grotesque thing still carving up his body with its blades.

"Jesus Christ! Open fire!"

Hammond and Chen spun around and held down the triggers, deadly pulse rounds ripping trough the torso of the creature. It did not seem particularly affected though, and with a roar it pounced at Chen.

"Open the door Kendra!"

The pilot did not stand a chance. The creature sliced him in half, blood and intestines pouring across the floor. It roared again and turned itself towards Hammond and Kendra.

"Kendra!"

"I've got it! Go!"

The door behind them opened. Hammond let out a final burst of his rifle before escaping through with his colleague. Isaac and Twilight realized in horror that the thing was looking directly at them.

"_Isaac! Twilight! Get the hell out of there! RUN!_"

The engineer frantically opened the door behind the counter of the security checkpoint, him and Twilight frantically running for their lives as the alarms whined. More creatures poured out of the vents in the shaft, but neither of them dared look back. Isaac finally sighted an elevator and ushered Twilight in.

"In here! Go!"

He literally punched the console to the elevator, the creatures failing to catch them in time before the doors closed. Both of them were hyperventilating, the shock and terror still controlling them.

Without warning, a pair of claws pried the elevator doors open. Twilight and Isaac both screamed in terror at the apparition before them. It looked like the decaying body of a human, with black, glossy, soulless eyes staring hungrily at them, and arms raised high in the air with sharp, bloodied blades ready to cut them apart. It emitted a guttural roar from it's jawless mouth, bile raining out of the exposed throat, before pouncing at them.

Before any harm could befall them though, the elevator doors snapped shut, crushing the monster's body and sending body parts and blood spraying everywhere. One of the claws barely missed Isaac's head, while the head rolled of in the direction of a traumatized Twilight, who quickly scurried away in the corner from it and started sobbing in uncontrolled distress. Isaac shakily got to his feet and crouched to one knee besides the unicorn and held her in his arms, trying to comfort her.

"It's okay Twilight," he whispered. "It's dead now. It ain't gonna hurt us anymore... It ain't gonna hurt us anymore..."


	3. New Arrivals, part 2

The elevator came to a grinding halt. Isaac nervously peeked out his head before shuffling back inside with Twilight. He gazed down towards the unicorn; the poor thing was still trembling in the corner, having temporarily discarded her helmet to let the tears flow free.

He felt sorry for her; being attacked by the creature and losing two friends to it had pained his heart immensely. He hadn't known Johnston or Chen well, but they had seemed like good men. And now they were dead, brutally slaughtered by... Whatever that abomination had been.

He wasn't foreign to death. Isaac had already witnessed several colleagues die accidentally in a deep-space operation when a gravity tether failed and crushed them between their ship and an asteroid. He had been left in a state of depression for two months before finally getting over it thanks to Nicole's support. But Twilight... Isaac guessed she had never experienced something as traumatic as this. She looked absolutely mortified. When Twilight had described her homeworld, Isaac found it sounded absolutely happy and peaceful. She didn't deserve to witness this.

He crouched to her level again and put a hand on her head gently.

"Hey," he said gently. "I know you're scared. Believe me, I'm terrified too. But we need to find Hammond and Kendra, okay? We'll... We'll get out of here, okay?"

The unicorn didn't respond immediately but simply nodded, sniveling and wiping away a few tears with her hoof before resetting her helmet. They both exited the elevator, eyes and ears peeled.

The maintenance level was almost pitch black; only a damaged ceiling light and their helmets lit up the room. There was a smell of dust in the air, along with the metallic taste of blood and something rotten. The sound of scuffling and growling could be heard from inside the walls, making a shaky Twilight shift closer to the engineer. Isaac noticed nervously that a lot of blood was smeared across the rusty walls, everything from large splashes to red handprints.

_Something doesn't feel right,_ Isaac gulped. _Where are the bodies?_

A lone door was in the center of the opposite wall. Isaac approached it slowly, the unicorn still in tow. He pressed the button and took a few steps back, not really wanting to discover what would appear in the next room.

The door's lock rotated a few times before finally releasing with a loud hiss, letting the door slide open with a metallic creak. They both stepped inside tentatively.

Isaac immediately wished they hadn't.

Inside the sickly green storage room were several violently mangled bodies, all which had missing limbs or had huge chunks of flesh torn from them. A pair of victims were decapitated, their heads having rolled off in different directions. Some were even stripped of their skin, their flesh and muscles bared and sliced, their tendons torn through. The overwhelming smell of bodily fluids hit them, assailing their noses and making them gag. Isaac could feel the bile rise up his throat but quickly swallowed to counter it.

Twilight was not so lucky. She hurriedly discarded her helmet again before emptying her stomach's contents through her mouth. She erupted into a hacking fit before clearing her throat. Isaac noticed she was shaking even more now; her face was paling and her pupils dilating at the sight of the carnage, beads of sweat rolling down her body. He regretted he could do nothing towards her condition now.

"Oh gosh..." She whispered. Her gaze was transfixed upon the pile of dead people, unable to avert it out of fascination and horror.

The engineer made his way across the room, staying well away from the corpses. The trail of blood continued across the ground towards another body in the room, as if it had been dragged to this point. The dead man had his legs severed and several deep cuts all over his remaining body, his hand clawing against the wall in a desperate attempt to get out of this nightmare. Isaac's stomach made a double take when he noticed the message scribbled across the wall in the man's own blood.

_CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS_

The S was unfinished, the trail of blood dragging down towards the deceased crew member's hand. As much as the message was ominous and sickly, a glimmer of hope surged through Isaac: these monsters were not invincible. He approached the dead body and turned him gently, his tag revealing the name "T. Benson, Tram Engineering." Isaac silently offered a thanks to the man.

He looked around the workbench close to him for something noteworthy before finding it. A recently repaired, but currently inactive tool laid on the working space, it's slightly used surface gleaming in the only light of the room. He picked up the weapon and inspected it thoroughly; Isaac recognized the pistol-shaped device as a high-power mineral plasma cutter. He flipped the switch to activate it, the cutter emitting a small whine before the targeting lasers and the ammo counter lit up.

Her curiosity taking over momentarily, Twilight got up on her feet and observed the improvised weapon in Isaac's hands as he fiddled around with it. She prodded his leg gently to catch his attention and pointed at the device, at which point Isaac declared with slight relief:

"I think I've found a way to defend ourselves."

* * *

"Twilight?"

Spike paced around the house anxiously. The lavender unicorn hadn't been at home when the dragon had woken up to prepare breakfast. He had first dismissed it, thinking that she was probably reading downstairs or at one of her friends preparing for the picnic today, but as the clock kept ticking and ticking, Spike was beginning to get worried. He knew by experience that Twilight was never late, especially not by half an hour.

He decided to look around the library again. No signs of her were found anywhere; her bed was untouched, the kitchen was clean, and all the books were in order. All except for two of them, who were lying on the floor near the fireplace. Spike picked them up; the first one was written by Star Swirl the bearded and seemed to be a detailed description of some advanced race of primates (_how can monkeys even be intelligent?_ Spike snorted), while the other was a long and complicated book about dimensions and... the multiverse-something. The dragon looked through a couple of pages before growing bored of the overly-complex language and closed it.

He looked towards the wall clock again. Twilight was by now thirty-five minutes late, and the dragon was growing worried now; his big adoptive sister never left like that without leaving a note. With no time to lose, he left the books on the floor and hurried out of the library towards the park to tell Rarity and the others.

* * *

Isaac and Twilight left the locker room and continued down the gloomy corridor. They moved in a slow, deliberate pace and in silence, still nervously shifting from the scuttling in the vents above and in fear that something could be waiting for them up ahead. Still, Isaac felt slightly more confident with his plasma cutter in hand. He was also thankful for the flashlight on the tool to illuminate the darkened pathways and hopefully warn them of anything approaching.

Twilight was holding up a little better now, the initial shock and horror of seeing so much death having settled down. The experience had rattled the unicorn violently; while death from woodland predators were sadly happening now and then in Equestria, they were normally extremely rare and were over in a matter of seconds, the unfortunate pony often killed quickly. But this... That thing had hacked the crew members to pieces, for Celestia's sake! What kind of thing could relish in that?

_Nopony should die like that,_ Twilight sobbed.

There was something undeniably, plainly wrong with it too. The body structure had resembled a human way too much for her liking. And those eyes... Those plain, glossy black, dead eyes that had observed them with feral hunger and had continued to do so even as the head had rolled off... She swore that thing was piercing her soul at that moment. She shuddered. If the doors hadn't closed in time...

_Don't think like that, Twilight! _She scolded herself.

They approached the end of the tunnel. Isaac motioned for her to wait while he activated the door panel. She could see the engineer trembling when he reached out his arm, obvious signs that he was terrified too behind his emotionless helmet. The mare felt a pang of sympathy for the man; this whole experience must have been grueling for him too, if not worse, to see his fellow kin die. His grip on the cutter tightened as the door opened. Isaac went in first, sweeping the area with his weapon before Twilight followed him cautiously into the spacious room. A few windows were facing what looked like a train terminal (how odd with trains inside a spaceship, Twilight mused), their only source of light coming from a pair of floodlights on the other side of the glass panes. Twilight jumped with joy and relief when she discovered Kendra and Hammond very much alive on the opposite platform. The humans seemed to have noticed them too and waved them over.

A holoboard sprung into existence in front of Isaac. Hammond's visage appeared on screen, looking mildly exhausted from recent events. Kendra seemed to pant out in relief while the security officer regained his composure before turning to them.

"_Isaac! Twi! God, I can't believe they made it!_"

"_Isaac, miss Sparkle,_" he wheezed. "_We ran into more of them on the way. Are you okay?_"

"_More what?_" A frantic Kendra stopped her pacing for a while before confronting Hammond. "_What are those things? Is- Is that the crew?_!"

"_Keep your voice down! Whatever they are they sure aren't __friendly!_" He shot back before turning back to the others, clear frustration in his voice. "_And half the doors on this ship are locked because of the quarantine. Now, we have to get to the bridge, but first we've got to repair the tram system._"

Kendra sighed audibly, still pacing around while shooting glares at Hammond. Clearly she wasn't enjoying being bossed around in this situation.

"_You're crazy Hammond, you're going to get us all killed._"

"_If you listen to me, I will get you out of here alive,_" he growled in response. "_Now what's wrong with the tram?_"

Kendra skimmed rapidly through a few commands on a console, sighing in exasperation. "_The data board is fried but there should be a spare in the Maintenance Bay. There's also a broken tram blocking the tunnel that needs to be repaired. Damn it, everything is on the other side of the quarantine! We can't reach it from here!_"

"_No we can't..._" Hammond said before turning his attention to the screen again. "_But you can. Isaac if I can get to the bridge, I should be able to access the personnel files. You fix the tram and I'll help you find Nicole._"

Isaac tensed at that statement before smacking his helmet. Damn it, how could he have forgotten about Nicole?

He struggled to calm down. What Hammond proposed was probably near suicidal when he had no idea how many creatures were still onboard, but then again his friend was right. If he did this right they could fix the tram, make their way to the bridge, find Nicole and any other survivors... And then get the hell out of this nightmare.

_First things first though_, he thought grimly. _Let's go fix this._

"_Wait, Hammond... Don't turn it off yet._"

Kendra appeared on screen this time, a concerned frown upon her face. She decided to speak gently to the unicorn, like a mother would to a crying child. "_Twilight, listen. You're back where you wanted now, right? I'm begging you, just... Get out of here. You have a chance to escape this crap, you can go home, there's no reason to stay here. I'm... I'm sorry you had to go through this. Okay? Just get home now, to safety._"

Twilight felt tears well up again and removed her helmet to confront her friend. Kendra's eyes were pleading her to leave, but the mare knew full well she couldn't just abandon them to their fate on this damned ship. She wasn't the Element of loyalty, but what kind of friend decided to leave them to the mercy of these monsters?

"_Miss Sparkle... Kendra is right. I don't believe this is the right place for you._"

"_Twilight please listen to me. I promise we will be alright, okay? You have a chance to get out of here. Leave now, while you can. Live another day, Twilight._"

She averted her gaze towards Isaac. While his expression was hidden behind the helmet, she could guess he had the same pleading look in his eyes.

The decision hung heavily above her head. She had only known her human companions for a week now, but they had been such wonderful friends for the trip. Just like Johnston and Chen, she knew there was a possibility none of them would survive this ordeal. She felt closer to them than many of Ponyville's citizens and she knew that she wanted to help them.

But how? Twilight knew she would probably not be able to help Isaac or the others in any way. She would just be a burden to them all along. The encounter from earlier was still fresh in her mind. Could she really bring herself to kill one of these things, or to watch another one of the crew get murdered in such a fashion before her eyes? Would she be able to keep her sanity in this living nightmare? And what about her friends? Hadn't she been anxious to get back to them just a few days ago? Who had taken care of Spike until now?

The difficulty of the choice overwhelmed her. Everything in her life had been carefully planned so far; her studies, her meetings with her friends, the letters to the princess, everything could be scribbled onto a handy checklist and planned meticulously with the help from her dragon assistant. There were no such things here. A difficult decision was hanging above her, and there was no clear answer in sight.

For the first time in her life, Twilight felt truly lost.

* * *

Seven days had passed since Twilight Sparkle's disappearance, and everyone was starting to grow extremely worried by now. Ever since Spike had relayed the news to rest of the Elements of Harmony, the search for the princess's protégé had grown to encompass the entire town. News traveled quickly across Ponyville of the librarian's disappearance; even Celestia and Twilight's brother Shining Armor had been notified, the former leaving Canterlot under Luna's care until she came back and the latter leaving his post temporarily to help find his missing sister.

Many had been heartbroken to hear the news, especially those who stood near Twilight. The Elements, princess Celestia and Shining Armor had made their way to the library, searching attentively around the house after clues. Their search was fruitless though, as they all met together in the common room to discuss their findings. When Celestia asked Spike if Twilight had left anything unusual behind her before disappearing, the dragon scratched his chin, claiming that he had indeed found two books lying on the floor when she was gone. Hurriedly, the princess of the sun ordered him to show them to her, to which he quickly compiled. A hurried skimming through the pages had indeed confirmed Celestia's worst fears, the rest of the group shifting worriedly as her expression grew to one of exasperation.

"Oh Twilight," she whispered. "What have you done?"


	4. New Arrivals, final part

_...Insertion of ERCC-1 graft complete _

_...Test subject shows increased signs of mutations in the frontal lobe and spinal cord through areas 2-7_

_...Synthesizing_

_...Done_

The needles were pulled out of the mass of necrotic flesh in the protein vat and retracted back into the apparatus that held the machine in place. The man grinned in satisfaction. Soon, his patient would be ready to be set free and lead the glorious crusade for Mankind's ascension.

He gently put his hand on the glass, as if to reach out to his creation like God did to Adam. His child was truly magnificent. A born killer to rend the nonbelievers apart and destroy them. The man smiled wickedly. This was truly what God's work was about; to unite these petty, primitive primates and to make them whole, a part of a greater plan. No one, especially not these interlopers on that had recently boarded, would stop Convergence.

He brought up the security footage from recently and gazed intently at the peculiar creature that had come onboard with the vessel's crew. The scientist inside had become madly excited at this discovery: the equine being would soon become his test subject to further advance the transformation while the worthless humans would be cast aside, consumed by the collective.

Everything would come together in time. All he needed was to be patient.

* * *

There was nothing but silence as the Kellion's crew contemplated Twilight's decision. Anxiousness grew in every one's heart as they awaited the unicorn's verdict. Finally, she steadied herself and took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "You're all right. I can't fight these things. I apologize for letting you face these thing alone."

"_You have nothing to apologize for Twilight,_" Kendra reassured her.

Her encouraging words made Twilight smile a bit before she cleared her mind, putting on her helmet to clear out the unpleasant smells. She mentally prepared herself for the trip back. It was like reading a book; only concentrating on the most important things.

_You're going home, girl_, Twilight berated herself. _Focus._

A thin pinprick of light formed at the edge of her horn. She poured every ounce of magical energy she had could into it until it grew larger and brighter, eventually forcing the awed humans to shield their eyes. She pushed harder; she could feel realities twist apart by now, tendrils of energy licking at Twilight from her homeworld.

_Come on, _she beckoned herself.

A faint sound reached the mare's ears now and grew louder, like a trickle of water steadily but slowly forming a river.

The mare grew nervous, a creeping chill snaking across her body. The echoes were close now. Whispers in the dark called out her name, almost beckoning her to join them in the shadows that now clouded her view. Everything was but a thick red mist in front of her, strange and alien symbols flashing out of the darkness.

_Twilight... Twilight..._

In an instant, Twilight panicked and broke the spell. Her vision went back to normal and she took a huge gulp of air after realizing she had been holding her breath the entire time. She had never experienced anything like that; whatever had stopped her wasn't natural.

A worried Isaac approached her. "What happened?"

"I- I can't do it..."

"What?"

"I can't do it... I can't complete the spell... This isn't supposed to be happening!"

Hammond could be heard sighing audibly for the other side, while the engineer rubbed his face. "Shit."

"But why? It worked before! I should be home right now!" A frantic Twilight paced around. Isaac simply stopped her by putting a hand on her back.

"Twi, calm down. Maybe... It's the stress or something like that."

"But-"

"_Miss Sparkle, I'm afraid any of us are unable to help,_" the security officer told her. "_If you tag along with Isaac, maybe you'll be able to try it later. But for now, we need to find out what happened to the Ishimura, and then get out of here._"

There was no sense arguing for now. The mare gulped nervously. "I... I understand."

"_Stay safe. Both of you._"

The feed was cut.

Isaac made sure the plasma battery was properly inserted into the cutter before they proceeded through the door into the tunnels again. The sound of shuffling and growls around reached their ears again, although Isaac proceeded with a bit more confidence since he had a weapon at hand. He brought up his map and beckoned Twilight to take a look.

"Alright," he spoke in low volume. "The tram is the closest to where we are right now, so we'll deal with that first, then we'll travel to the maintenance bay to find the data board. Keep close to me, okay?"

"Right," Twilight whispered anxiously.

The pair went down the tunnel to the right. More intelligible whispers echoed through the walls in the dark. The lights were at low power, casting nothing but a dull light across the pathway. Apart from the quiet sounds of mumbling and their own heavy footsteps, nothing broke the silence.

A loud clang echoed above them. They both jerked up, Isaac holding up his cutter at ready. By the time they had reacted however, it was already gone. He felt a slight pat on his leg and looked down.

Twilight was trembling, pointing at a large pool of blood on the floor in front of them. The smears resembled like someone had been dragged along the ground before the trail continued up the wall and into the vent on the ceiling. The survivors tensed, the engineer holding up his weapon against the hole while they approached it. Nothing happened for several seconds, and they both exhaled in relief.

The walkway took a turn now. A door lead into the next area, Isaac fiddling with the controls before the door unlocked with a loud sound of depressurization and opened.

A body came crashing down at their feet. The pair jumped back in panic, muted gasps escaping their mouths before calming down. Isaac recognized the dead man as a miner by his suit, his persona suffering great cuts all over the torso and blood splatters on the mask. He sighed in relief. Whatever had been in the vents was moving away from them now.

The continued down the stairs when they heard crashes at a continuous pace. A quick look made them understand why: the door leading to the tram rails had malfunctioned, the heavy opening slamming against the frame rapidly. One of the monsters laid in pieces by it, obviously foreshadowing how powerful the force of the door closing was.

"No way we're going past that," Isaac muttered.

Something lying nearby made him smirk however. Close to the dead abomination was a Stasis module; he picked it up and wired it to his suit, giving his wrist a experimental swing before aiming at the door at firing it up. Nothing happened however, visibly irritating the human even more when he noticed the charge on the module was empty.

A purple glow was suddenly engulfing the door; he noticed the unicorn's helmet lighting up similarly when the metallic door was, to Isaac's surprise, enveloped in ice, firmly stopping it's rampage. Twilight panted before turning to the engineer.

"Voilà," she sang. He chuckled.

The pair continued to the tram control room. It was a wide open space, relatively brightly lit. The broken tram was conveniently parked on the maintenance rails, ready to be changed at a moment's notice, along with a Stasis recharge station on the wall.

Fixing the tram itself was easy. The only snag they encountered was a malfunctioning claw, which was easily fixed by a burst of Stasis. This bothered Isaac. So far, they had not encountered a single creature since their arrival in the tram control room. This meant that they either had not found the human and the pony, or they going after Hammond and Kendra, or... Those damnable things were actually preparing an ambush.

A vent was smashed on the wall nearby, accompanied by an unearthly scream and a gargling abomination that lunged towards them. Twilight backed away in terror while Isaac spun around, fumbling around with the plasma cutter. The creature raised a blade and shrieked, ready to impale it's bipedal prey before a loud bang and a bright flash echoed across the room. The cutter had fired, surgically slicing off the arm that had intended to kill Isaac and leaving the monstrous predator temporarily stunned before it launched itself at the duo again. This time, however, Isaac had anticipated this. The weapon barked again and the other arm fell off, a cry of rage and pain escaping the creature's tortured larynx before it collapsed on the floor, dead.

Isaac held the still smoking weapon in his hands, both him and Twilight breathing heavily from their encounter. The adrenaline wore off, finally letting them realize what they had done. Isaac started laughing nervously while Twilight simply stared at their victim.

More gurgles could be heard, making them both tense. Two more of the undead monsters surged through the vent, bellowing gutturally before charging them.

The first one was quickly dispatched by Isaac, who tore apart it's legs with a shot before cutting off an arm. The other one was too fast though and rammed the engineer, sending him reeling onto the ground with a pained grunt. Before it could lunge it him, however, it was hit by a purple beam of energy, encasing it's body in ice and rendering it immovable. Another plasma burst was fired into the it's center of mass, the entire creature exploding in thousands of frozen shards.

Twilight had barely believed what she had accomplished. Multiple emotions were conflicting in her head, fear, guilt and a just little bit of pride for saving the human. She looked worriedly at Isaac, who was already back on his feet.

"Not bad Twi," he panted. "Thanks for the save."

"I... What... I just acted impulsively! It was going to... Kill... You..." She sputtered, unwilling to utter the word. "I just had to do something! Oh gosh, if Celestia ever finds out I did this... I just broke several unforgivable rules of Equestrian law! She's going to lock me up, or banish me, or lock me up in the place she banished me in! Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh..."

Isaac shook his head at the unicorn's incoherent ramblings.

"Twilight, you saved me, and I'm sure Celestia or what's her name would have done the same to protect someone she holds dear. Excuse my language, but right now it's pretty much "fuck the rules" on this ship. Don't you understand?" He nodded towards the charred remains. "These things... They're not the crew anymore. Don't feel guilty, Twi. They would have done worse things to you."

He knelt down to her level. "Believe me, I'm scared shitless now, but we can't lose faith now, Twi. The others are depending on us. We're gonna link up with the others, we're gonna find Nicole, and then we are getting the hell off this ship. You with me?"

Despite his crude speech, Twilight could feel her chest grow a bit in determination. "You're right. I wasn't thinking straight. Sorry. Let's- let's go."

They decided to recompose themselves a little bit before continuing on. A relieved Kendra reappeared on their communication screens.

"_Good work, both of you. That tram was blocking the entire system. Now you just have to find the data board and reinstall it and we can start moving around the ship again. Stay safe._"

They reemerged into the hall with the frozen door again when more scratching emerged right under their feet. They both tensed, Isaac with the cutter at ready and Twilight unwillingly gathering up another freezing spell.

The iron grate in front of them was smashed. More aliens burst through, along with more mutated corpses crawling along the ground, their back legs fused together like a scorpion's dart. Isaac lined up the shots with a bit more confidence, the three thin cyan targeting lasers aiming for limbs and cutting them off precisely, cauterizing the stumps instantly on exit velocity. Twilight herself fired off several cold violet beams with precision, snap freezing targets for her compatriot to finish off. She cast aside her fearful thoughts for now, deciding to treat the combat in front of her without emotion like a game of chess, concentrating on analyzing the enemy's movements and countering accordingly. So far, it worked in alleviating her mind. Isaac was less disturbed and seemed to get used to it, his aim far less shaky now that the undead flesh was further away from them.

Seven dead abominations laid before them now. The engineer exchanged plasma cells again, noting he still had five whole clips on his person. Twilight was a bit winded from magical use; since there was little to no ambient magic onboard, she had to draw strength from within herself to fight. She sighed again from tiredness and nervousness.

"Using magic constantly is tiring," she panted.

"You could use some stimpacks if we find some," suggested Isaac before chuckling tiredly. "You know, we might actually make it." He gently punched Twilight in a playful manner. "We make quite the team."

"If we get off this ship Isaac, I would rather just go home and forget about all this."

"Right. Sorry."

* * *

The lower areas of maintenance bay was cast in partial darkness when they entered, with a single dimmed spotlight illuminating the décor. The stench of blood was so thick that they could taste it. Several rusting hooks were hanging ominously on the ceiling, one of them sporting a hanging body in the faded orange light, it's traits indistinguishable in the oppressive darkness. Said chains were clattering slowly while more whispers echoed all around them with no clear source. It was probably just Twilight's imagination, but she swore _they _called out her name again. She shivered: even Nightmare Moon's temple didn't feel as scary... Or as promising of certain death.

The setting unnerved them again. Despite the gruesome encounter earlier, they had a clear idea of what they had fought and had gained a temporary, if short-lived, reprieve that their enemy could be defeated. The creeping darkness was something different, the shadows tricking their minds into imagining things that weren't there.

_Or hide things that really are there_, she gulped.

Twilight followed a tentative Isaac again, staying constantly vigilant for suspect gratings from the wall and taking care to stay away from the vents. According to Kendra, the data board was in the security office that thy were currently trying to enter: trying being the keyword.

"The door's locked," he whispered. "Talk to me Kendra."

"_There's an emergency override key on the second floor. Take the elevator up and advance to the end of the platform._"

After a brief ride up in a way too loud service elevator, they found a single mutant staggering randomly around. The head was missing, making the monster simply stand on location and spin around with it's blades, not noticing the commotion barely a yard away from it. He was quickly dispatched by Isaac, who simply sliced it's legs apart. After a short feeling of relief when nothing else was heard, they approached the body in macabre fascination.

"They are still alive when you decapitate them," Twilight mused in a tiny voice, "meaning whatever reanimates the bodies obviously doesn't need the host's central nervous system to control them."

"That's a fancy way of saying not to aim for the head, doctor Sparkle," Isaac grumbled.

She blushed. Despite their horrifying appearance and bloodthirst, Twilight had to admit these things were interesting creatures from a scientific point of view. Judging from body structure and looks, these were indeed reanimated, mutated corpses, transformed to kill for... Whatever reason. She theorized that the culprit for the massacre onboard the ship would probably be a powerful organism capable of altering the genes; like some sort of radioactive virus or parasite.

She shook her head. Even if it would be a fantastic chance to study this "zombie virus", it would not only be extremely dangerous and irresponsible... But she would probably burn any samples she fell across anyway.

They found the key on the body of a decapitated security officer. Again, memories of the deaths in the flight lounge hit them, but they quickly discarded the painful memories. Twilight glanced around while Isaac went through the macabre process of retrieving the key from the body. She caught a glimpse of the dead human hanging from the hook, his abdomen pierced through. An unpleasant image of a lifeless Isaac hanging there instead crept it's way through her mind but she quickly looked away.

_Don't think like that._

"Damn it Twi! Do something!"

The sound of necrotic abominations bursting through the roof snapped her off the daydreaming. More "zombies" were advancing now, intent on tearing through their soft flesh.

Isaac had already killed one of them, but two more were still coming.

She wouldn't have time to gather up enough energy to freeze them in time, before they pounced on her, so she did the next best thing; a single, high powered beam of magic. She aimed for one's legs and fired, the energy knocking it off it's feet. Isaac finished them both off quickly before reloading and sprinting towards the elevator with Twilight in tow, their hearts beating against their ribcages when more shrieks tore through the bay.

Their eyes shifted around frantically when more shambling was heard above them. They prepared to dart away as soon as the elevator doors opened...

...Right into an awaiting creature. Without warning it shoved them back into the elevator and tried to grab Isaac, who desperately grappled with it for dear life. In her panic, Twilight spun around and delivered a solid buck to the monster, shoving it off balance and enabling Isaac to overpower it. He delivered a square punch into it's jaw to make it fall to the ground before angrily curb stomping it's body to shreds, blood sticking itself to his boots.

While the engineer was occupied with terminating his opponent, Twilight had picked up Isaac's dropped plasma cutter with her telekinesis and unwillingly fired at the approaching flesh horde. She felt nausea rise up her throat when her shots dismembered one of them.

_I can't believe it... I killed someone again... This time directly..._

The remaining three were approaching too fast though, and they were stuck in the cramped elevator with no way of escaping.

_Oh Celestia we're going to die!_

To her shock however, a blue flash hit the charging undead and left them suspended in midair, their movements limited to slow motion. Twilight noticed Isaac had managed to use his Stasis module at the last moment and gave him back his cutter, leaving him to slice them apart calmly. The area was clear again.

She took a look behind her and immediately felt the urge to turn away; the monster Isaac had tangled with was now a huge pool of red on the elevator floor, trashed body parts splattered across the cramped space like macabre decorations. The lower parts of Isaac's suit were completely crimson, and even Twilight's suit was drenched; she had never noticed while her attention was focused on the other ones. If someone had not noticed the sickly smell of blood by now, they certainly would.

Isaac exhaled in exhaustion and flexed his body, grunting in pain as he cracked his neck.

"Let's just find that board and get the fuck out of here," he wheezed.

* * *

_Finally._

As Isaac tore out wiring from the old data terminal to replace it, Twilight sat back, her helmet at her side, deeply engrossed in thought now that the threat of death was not immediately hanging above them. The last hour had been completely outlandish to the poor pony, ravaging her confidence and sanity.

_I did it, _she whimpered to herself. _I survived. I fought off terrible zombie beings and somehow survived. Unless I died back there along with Isaac and this is some kind of dream._

A single tear felt down her cheek. _I can't go home to my friends. They probably think I'm dead by now. Maybe I am. I miss everyone so much... The princess... My- Brother-_

She was crying now. Ever since she had arrived in the human's world it had taken a huge physical and psychological toll on her. She raised her front hooves and stared at them, blood still caked onto the suit.

_If I hadn't messed up back in the library, I wouldn't be in this situation. Now look at me. I... I killed these things by my own hooves. They used to be people and I killed them._

_These things... They're not the crew anymore. Don't feel guilty, Twi. They would have done worse things to you, _Isaac's words echoed through her mind. She gazed at the engineer again, deeply engrossed in his work. The mare wondered how he could hold on to the hope that Nicole would still be alive onboard the Ishimura. She chuckled quietly. Isaac was probably one of the most stubbornly loyal beings she had come across... Not too unlike a certain cyan pegasus. She sobbed again at the though of Rainbow Dash.

_Will I ever see them again?_

A triumphant exclamation from her human compatriot interrupted her train of thought. He emerged from the tangle of cables again and replaced the metal grate before closing it, humming as he restarted the software to accommodate for the changes. He gave Hammond and Kendra a thumbs up from his side of the glass, his colleagues returning the gesture before boarding the train that had arrived on station. Twilight wiped away a few tears when the holoscreen popped up in front of them again.

"_Alright, we're onboard and headed for the bridge,_" Hammond smiled. "_Good work._"

"_Strange..._" Kendra noted. "_The quarantine just lifted..._"

"_Whatever was in the flight lounge must have left. Isaac, get back to the Kellion and prep it for launch. We'll find out what we can from the bridge and meet you there._"

"_If we live that long. You're out of your league here, Hammond, this is suicide! We're going to die out here!_"

"_Your lack on confidence is duly noted, miss Daniels, but I have a mission to complete and that's exactly what I'm going to do, with or without you. Do we understand each other?_"

"_...Just get us out of here alive._"

Isaac snorted in frustration at their antics when the feed cut before reaching Twilight her helmet.

"If these two could get along for once..."

* * *

The way back to the flight deck passed in relative silence. The Kellion was still damaged, but Isaac predicted that it could be flyable again with a few minor repairs to the port booster... If they were lucky.

The hangar was deathly quiet, but offered at least some relief for the pair as they walked alongside the blood and corpse-free walkway to the Kellion's airlock. Twilight decided to stay outside while Isaac went onboard; she would just be in the way anyway.

A few sparks flew from a broken computer as the engineer brought up the ship's holoterminal. The damage was much better than he had initially feared, and was nothing an hour or two of dedication wouldn't fix-

_Wait._

His eyes scrolled down to the bottom line and widened in horror.

_Fuel containment failure_

That was extremely bad, considering the smaller fires and sparks running along the hull. If he didn't act fast, the tanks would explode if unattended.

A screech was heard. Isaac saw one of those scorpion-looking creatures crawl across the cockpit, slamming it's claws at the glass to try and break in. He hurriedly decided to run out and deal with it when a huge explosion tore through the starboard hull, sending the monster burning and plummeting to it's death and almost knocking Isaac off balance.

"Isaac!"

He desperately staggered his way out of the burning ship before being tossed out of the airlock by a blast and landed in front of a horrified Twilight; he managed to turn around just in time to see the Kellion getting wrecked, the remains consuming themselves in a fireball before falling down with a screech of metal to the cargo bay and crashing before finally exploding.

Twilight was in a catatonic state after seeing their very lifeline getting so brutally cut in front of her. Everything was lost. They couldn't escape anymore; trapped like rats in a cage.

_This isn't possible..._

Not even Isaac's warning of approaching hostiles could move her out of her trance.

_This isn't possible..._


	5. Intensive Care, part 1

The outside world simply ceased to exist for Twilight. The sounds of isaac's cutter firing and the terrifying roars of the approaching monsters were nothing but distant echoes in her mind while her vision remained a blur, the colors and shapes of everything around her distorting itself. The Kellion was but a useless piece of junk metal now.

_This isn't possible..._

Stuck in a deathtrap, their only means of escape fleeing their grasp. Outnumbered. Scared out of their minds. No help coming. A sudden realization crept into her mind.

_We're all going to die..._

"Twi! Snap the fuck out of it!"

Her reverie was interrupted by Isaac's desperate cries. More of the flesh abominations were approaching them now, obviously attracted like wolves to a prey by the commotion in the hangar. Slashers and scorpions came down upon them like a flood but were quickly destroyed by plasma and ice blasts. Finally, the final creature's death gurgle echoed out.

"_Alert, collision detected in the hangar bay,_" a computerized voice chimed in way too calmly for Twilight's liking. "_Emergency crews have been notified._"

Kendra and Hammond reappeared again, the computer specialist staring in mute shock at the wreck that was now lying in the cargo bay while a frantic security officer paced behind her.

"_What the hell is happening down there? What happened to the shuttle?_"

Kendra simply shook her head in despair and whispered: "_That was our ride home... It's the only way of this ship..._"

"_Kendra-_"

"_No Hammond!_" Kendra shouted. "_This... Changes everything!_"

"_Just let me think! Can you access the command computer?_"

"_It's no good. There was an executive lockdown of all primary systems. Without the Captain's authorization, I can't access them!_"

"_Well? Where's the Captain?_"

There was a short pause while Kendra worked the computer before sighing.

"_Captain Benjamin Matthius. Location... Medlab. Status... Deceased._"

"_What? How?_"

"_I can't access that information! Find the Captain and you'll find his RIG! With his authorization codes I can crack this computer right open!_"

"_Damn it! Isaac, I'm sending the tram back to your location. Get to the medical deck and find that RIG as fast as you can-_"

"_What was that?_"

"_Holy shit! Come on, get out of there!_"

"Hammond! Kendra!"

The feed cut abruptly. Isaac cursed and beckoned Twilight to follow him quickly.

* * *

They rode the tram in silence, not having the energy left to speak a single word. Isaac was worriedly mulling to himself. The medical wing was where Nicole was stationed; hopefully he would find any clues on her location there. He sincerely hoped she had found a safe place to hide or that she was in company of someone with the knowledge on how to fight these things.

He glanced towards Twilight, who was lost in her thoughts, eyes slightly glazed as she stared away into nothing. He felt sorry for the poor unicorn. Obviously the last few hours had broken her psyche in unimaginable ways.

The tram slowed down to a stop at the station. The duo climbed out warily but were relieved to find the station empty. Almost.

Isaac's throat dried when he saw a still living woman lying on the floor alongside a limbless body, her eye bandaged and her medical uniform bloodied. He couldn't tell if she was sobbing or laughing quietly, but he leant towards the latter.

"Sshhh, it's alright McCoy, he's here now... Nothing to be afraid of..." The madwoman whispered to the dead body before turing to Isaac, a crooked smile on her face. "I knew you would come, just like you said..." She reached out and, to his and Twilight's horror, pulled out something from McCoy's intestines. "I, I saved this for you... Can I go now? McCoy wants to take me... To the shuttle..."

She gurgled one time before finally falling into eternal sleep, her body sliding into the corpse's arms. With a heavy heart, Isaac picked up the device she had given them in disgust before recognizing it as a Kinesis module. He wiped out some of the blood before rigging it to his arm alongside the Stasis module and testing it out on a few crates lying in the way, lifting them up and moving them aside.

They proceeded into the medical bay's security checkpoint. It looked as if a bomb had exploded; parts of the room had been blasted apart, a few still sizzling wires hung from the ceiling and there was an ocean of bodily fluids splattered on the walls. One of the doors had been barricaded with debris, leaving it inaccessible. At this point, Hammond contacted them.

"_Isaac? Are you there? We were attacked! Kendra's gone! One minute she was there, then...I can't believe I lost her! We can still do this. Get me the Captain's RIG codes and we'll find Nicole._" He brought up the map and highlighted several areas for them."_Looks like the crew barricaded the door to the emergency wing. You'll have to blow through it to get to the morgue. Get some thermite from medical storage, and a shock pad from Zero-G therapy. Should be down the corridor. God, communication is useless in all this static..._"

The engineer and Twilight traded worried looks. If Kendra was gone they could run into trouble with several of the Ishimura's malfunctioning systems. Still, they decided to press on.

"Let's go to medical storage first," suggested Isaac. Twilight nodded wordlessly.

He checked up his ammo. Two spare batteries and five shots left. They would have to make it count.

The journey to the main lab was uneventful except for a malfunctioning door that they quickly fixed with a freezing blast. The room itself was cold, a thin mist hanging in the air, and surprisingly well lit, enforcing the whiteness on the dirty walls. The lack of bodies was a welcome change too.

The quickly started rummaging through the lab in search of the thermite. Many labs were locked, and those who were open revealed no cans of thermite anyway. Frustrated, Isaac called Hammond again.

"There's nothing here," he grumbled.

"_Take the elevator down one level. If it's not there, there's a shortcut through the baby labs-_"

The alarms blared loudly. Twilight jumped in surprise as the room was plunged into partial darkness and the doors were put under lockdown.

"_Hazardous anomaly detected. Quarantine activated._"

"Shit! Call you later Hammond!"

One of the horrors landed behind them. Isaac swung around quickly with his arm and smashed the necrotic thing's face using the momentum if his cutter before finishing it off with a single blast to the knees. More poured through the vents but were stopped by Twilight, who had decided to experiment with some simple, yet powerful blasts to smash their limbs. One of the leapers threw itself at her but was stopped by Isaac, who blasted it's tail off and let the pony dodge the body in panic.

This temporary lull was enough to let one of the slashers approach her. She screamed and jumped away as the monster dug it's claws into the ground in an attempt to impale her. Isaac saw that and rammed his boot into it with a grunt before stomping on it, ending its miserable undeath.

"_Quarantine lifted._"

The lockdown finally ended. Twilight breathed out in relief before steadying herself.

"Is it bad that I'm getting used to this?"

"Probably," Isaac chuckled.

* * *

Twilight searched around the main office when she noticed something interesting. One of the computers, as she could tell from the glowing screen, was still functional.

"Isaac!"

The engineer joined her and immediately started it up but was disappointed when they found out it only contained research results from the past few weeks. _No, wait. _He scrolled down again and found a recently recorded video log: only a few days old in fact. Curious, he clicked the link.

The scene was in the very room they were standing in right now. The Captain and a scientist seemed to be discussing something that was making the latter worried, from what they could tell.

"_What in God's name is going on down there?_" The scientist asked anxiously.

"_I think that's precisely the point doctor,_" the elderly Captain answered calmly. "_God's work._"

"_I'm not so sure about that... We'll have to assume the colony's problems are somehow connected to the Marker._"

"_You can assume all you want to, I do not. The Marker is glorious and divine, you... You know that._"

"_God moves in mysterious ways,_" the doctor muttered.

"_Anyway, we'll have it onboard tomorrow. You can analyze it all you want to. What are you so worried about?_"

"_Worried? Captain... People are dying down there, killing each other. Is this... Madness the transformation Unitology teaches us?_"

The Captain moved closer and put a reassuring hand on the man's shoulder. "_Doctor... Terrence... There will always be risks when the stakes are high. And here, they are enormous. It could change everything._" The Captain left the room, leaving a sighing Terrence behind.

"_And that's what worries me._"

Isaac closed the link and shook his head.

"The Marker? That's just one of those Unitologist fairy tales..."

"What did he mean?" Twilight asked. "People were actually murdering each other on the planet before all this happened on the ship?"

"I don't know. Twilight... This sounds extremely fishy. I don't know what to think right now."

Twilight rummaged through some papers on the desk before finding something of interest.

"Isaac, listen." She cleared her throat before reciting. "_Personal log, doctor Kyne T. Chief medical officer. The vidlogs from the colony are poor quality, but the artifact does indeed appear to be a genuine Marker, the first to be found in Unitology's two hundred year history. I'm eager to get it on board the ship so I can study it properly._"

She paused before continuing."_The potential here is enormous. Not just for me personally, though it's true I've dreamed of such a discovery for decades. But also to humanity, and the Church of Unitology in particular. This marker could herald the dawn of a new age for mankind, and I will do my part to ensure it comes to pass. I know the Church will be grateful, but the true recognition will come from all of humanity. On this day, we are blessed._"

Isaac had never like Unitologists. When his father had disappeared a long time ago along with a merchant ship, her mother had brought up the Clarke family's son alone. Being a devout believer, she used Isaac's tuition money to buy herself into the highest rank of the Church's hierarchy, gaining a Vested title and leaving Isaac with too little funds to join one of the most prestigious engineering schools available. Since them there had always been bad blood between him and his mother before he turned his mistrust towards the Church itself. In Isaac's eyes, they were nothing but overzealous fools.

"They probably just dug up an odd shaped rock and started worshipping it," he sneered. "This isn't going to help us find Nicole anyway. Come on."

But Twilight was already outside. She waved for him and showed him another audio log. The man on the recording had a haggard voice with a slight accent, but Isaac could practically feel the zeal in his statements.

"_I finally convinced Jurgens to show me the video feed from the colony. And what I saw was glorious, breathtaking! Miners undergoing a transformation into something extraordinary. I must know more. Even as the believer within me wants to become one of them, the scientist needs to uncover their secrets! I need to study one of these... Necromorphs, as Kyne so clinically puts it. I need to witness this infection first hand. Perhaps that patient from the colony..._"

There was silence between them as they processed the information.

"Necromorphs..." Isaac muttered. "These things are called Necromorphs. Fitting."

Twilight gulped. "That scientist did not sound sane at all."

"He must have snapped when he saw the footage. Probably someone frail of mind."

"What about us, Isaac?"

He turned his head towards Twilight before laughing dispassionately. "I guess we have stronger will than most! We're still alive, right? That's gotta count for something!"

The unicorn was painfully reminded of the day she had gone crazy and had the entire town fall in love with a certain Smarty Pants doll. That had been for just one friendship report. She knew she would lose her mind on this ship: the question was when would she lose it.

"I guess..."

The engineer simply shrugged and readied his plasma cutter. "Let's just grab that thermite."

* * *

"What's with the baby labs anyway?"

"Pregnancies are not allowed on the ship," Isaac explained. "In case there is an emergency. The fetuses are grown in protein vats instead."

Twilight paled. "That sounds... Pretty gross, to be fair."

Isaac merely shrugged.

She felt even more disgusted when she saw it as they entered the labs. The babies were floating around in tubes some sickly green fluid, their navel cordons linked to some kind of machine. She was morbidly fascinated as the little critters floated around in their vats, seemingly oblivious to the world.

"Ugh."

The labs were divided into two sections, each one divided by a glass window. She shuddered at the sheer amount of tubes in here, but was in a sense relieved to see that the fetuses would not have to experience this nightmare. How did they even deal with it? Twilight knew that babies could react to outside stimuli while in their mother's womb, but could they even register what was going on? Did they even hear everyone get killed horribly? It must be horrible, to witness everything and yet not being able to do anything about it...

"Come on, come on! Let me out!"

They were shocked to see a clearly terrified survivor banging on the window, urging them to help him escape from something.

Twilight covered her mouth in fear and disgust as a grossly mutated baby crawled up on the wall behind the poor man, extending three tentacles from it's back and launching a razor sharp quill, impaling the man's hand to the window while he writhed in pain.

"NO!"

The Necromorph infant squealed and stabbed at the victim's head, making it explode like a ripe watermelon and splattering the window with his brain juices before escaping into the ceiling again. The pair backed away in horror from the window.

"Jesus Fuck!" shouted Isaac.

"That's just... So wrong!" cried Twilight! "What is wrong with these things! Turning children into... Into..." She fell onto the floor and sobbed again. "Oh gosh!"

"Twilight! We've got to move!"

"Oh Celestia! Take me away from this place!"

More baby squeals and shuffling was heard in the walls.

_They're coming through the vents..._

"Twilight, get up! They're coming..."

"Oh gosh, oh gosh... Why..."

The vents exploded.

"TWILIGHT!"


	6. Intensive Care, part 2

Celestia assembled her subjects in the library, a grave expression upon her normally calm and regal face. All of the other ponies were confused and slightly anxious at the news their princess would share with them. Shining Armor was pacing around the most, downright fearful for his sister's life. He was carrying a pleading look towards Celestia, who cleared her throat, unsure on how she would begin.

"My little ponies," she began hesitantly. "I'm afraid there has been a major complication surrounding Twilight's disappearance. I believe that her curiosity might have gotten the better of her and that she... That she isn't in this plane of existence anymore."

Everypony gasped. Fluttershy started tearing up. "Is she... She..."

"No, she is not dead," Celestia reassured her before returning serious. "However, much of what I've seen so far points toward that Twilight attempted some form of trans-dimensional observation and failed."

There was silence in the library as everypony processed what she had said.

"But Twilight wouldn't jump dimensions without telling us!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed incredulously. "I mean, the egghead wouldn't do that without preparing at least three checklists or something like that..." The pegasus then noticed Applejack's stern look and decided to shut up.

"I don't believe she wanted to in the first place," the princess explained. "Hence the name "trans-dimensional observation". She probably just wanted to passively take a look at another reality and overtaxed herself, resulting in her... Well, falling through."

Shining Armor's was downright worried for Twilight's condition. "But... She could be lost anywhere! How do we even find her?"

"Luckily I have a pretty good idea where she could be," Celestia smirked in satisfaction, levitating the copy of The Multiverse the unicorn in question had left behind. "Star Swirl left mentions of places he'd visited during his travels, most notably one dimension belonging to Humanity. Knowing Twilight, she would probably start looking there."

Nobody noticed a mint-green head quickly perking up through the window at the mention.

Celestia frowned. "Admirable, but foolish. The humans' dimension operate on physical laws widely differing from ours. I have no idea if Twilight can adapt, or how the humans will react to her presence. Luckily they seem to be intelligent, so we should be able to reason with them." She closed the book and sighed before turning to the assembled ponies in the library.

"I'm going to try and locate Twilight now. Stand back."

Celestia's horn glowed brightly, a large, semi-transparent mirror forming in front of everypony, who gasped in awe. Reality seemed to distort inside of it, flowing inside of it like water before gradually expanding. A vortex formed in the center of the anomaly, faintly glowing in wide spectrums of light before seemingly tearing open the fabric of space, earning many surprised gasps from the princess' subjects.

The tear expanded and revealed a glimpse into the human world. Several bipedal creatures could be seen milling around an enclosed room from the point of view of what was presumably another one; they could see through his eyes as he moved his armored fingers across some sort of glowing console, which lit up and showed some sort of ship, with parts of it glowing bright red as if to showcase some sort of damage.

Everyone's heart leapt in excitement as the unmistakable form of Twilight appeared before them as she peeked at the unnamed human's console, although clad in a suit similarly to those of the curious bipeds. Pinkie started bouncing excitedly towards the mirror and waved her hooves.

"Twilight! Twi! Twily! Hi! Over here! Hello strange things! Could you say hi to Twi from us?"

"They can't hear you Pinkie Pie," Celestia told her. "It is but a projection of what is happening right now." The pink pony sat down and pouted.

"I for one am glad that she is safe," Rarity said. "They don't seem very intent on hurting her."

"Good for them," Rainbow muttered, "or I would have given them a piece of it."

A harsh alarm sounded on the other side, and the entire room Twilight and the other humans was situated in was plunged into darkness. Fluttershy squeaked and dove under a chair while the rest glanced at the spatial rift worriedly.

"_What the hell was that?_" Asked one of the humans.

"_Quarantine must have settled in once the ventilation started working,_" another one reassured the rest. "_Everybody relax._"

Something shuffled overhead their heads. The ponies, not really expecting what would happen, fidgeted nervously. They could see Twilight pacing around the human whose perspective they were following, anxiously eyeing the other ones. There was a crash, and the view shifted quickly to the silhouette of one human... And something monstrous behind it.

Everypony gasped in horror as the abomination brought its blades down on it's victim. The rest was plunged in total turmoil. Bright flashes emanated from the devices the other humans held, impacting the creature but doing nothing. Another human was sliced in two pieces. There was a shout and a door opened; the human whose name was Isaac and Twilight ran down a corridor for their lives, terrifying roars chasing them throughout; an elevator; they closed the doors; the doors being forced open; and everypony shouting in terror at the abomination standing in front of the unlucky pair, only for it to be smashed to gory chunks by the elevator.

Celestia cancelled the spell abruptly, panting heavily from the psychological toll. The other ponies were in a state of mortified shock. Rarity was trying to comfort a weeping Fluttershy to no avail. Applejack felt sick, her entire face pale as death. Rainbow Dash was lying on the floor, shaking uncontrollably. Pinkie Pie's hair was deflated, her left eye slightly twitching. Shining Armor kept pacing around, desperately praying for his sister's life.

Celestia sighed one final time before steeling herself. "Twilight's in danger," she spoke, although it was barely a whisper. "I'm going to get her home."

* * *

The undead infants emerged from the vents. Isaac brought his cutter to bear, slicing through one of them while trying to return Twilight to reality.

"Twi, for fuck's sake!"

One of the lurkers took advantage of Isaac's temporary distraction and jumped onto his face. The engineer let out a cry and wrestled the creature, desperately trying to keep it away from him. As soon as it raised it's tentacles though, Isaac flung it down onto the ground and punted it like a ball, sending it careening through the corridor and smashing against the window.

Isaac turned around and expected to find another baby jumping at his face, but it was smashed to pieces I midair by a magical blast from Twilight, to his surprise. The unicorn said nothing, but kept on moving past Isaac, who resumed his walk towards the labs alongside her.

"You're right Isaac," she rasped. "There's no sense crying right now."

Isaac shot her a quizzical look.

"I can't keep on breaking down in every hard situation," she continued. "Besides, the quicker we go  
through this, the faster I... We, can go home."

The human kept on staring at her for a while but decided to say nothing.

They returned shortly to the security checkpoint after they had retrieved the thermite. They decided to hide the thermite flask in a locker until they had gathered the shock pad, which Hammond had told them was situated in the Imaging Diagnostics wing of the ship.

The pathway leading down to their objective was silent, their RIGs and Isaac's flashlight the only illumination sources to be found. More signs of massacre painted the walls, but no bodies were found.

The pair tensed at the sound of a dull, rhythmic thud coming down the end of the bend.

_Thump_

"Did you hear that?" Isaac nodded.

_Thump_

They rounded the corner carefully.

_Thump_

At the end of the hallway stood an armless man thumping his face against the wall, his face unseen to Isaac and Twilight. His features were bathed in red from the malfunctioning overhead alarm, making the other survivors fidget uncomfortably.

_Thump_

Isaac raised his plasma cutter and advanced slowly towards the crazed person, trying to make as little sound as his suit allowed.

_Thump- Crack_

He never found out what would have happened, as the madman's skull finally fractured under the stress and slid down the wall, his body sounding like nails on chalk as it dragged itself down across the glass window.

The survivors passed the body quietly before entering a large operation chamber, with a dead body trapped in a faintly orange-glowing glass container adorning the middle of the room on a couple of rails. Isaac demonstrated his Kinesis tool activating the elevator up through the lifting of a battery and inserting it into the plug socket, and then moving the entire container across the rails to make them a makeshift bridge across the gap. Twilight noted the process with much interest; while Kinesis seemed like a clumsier version of the standard telekinesis unicorns could achieve, it was undeniably useful for moving large objects ponies couldn't lift otherwise.

The pair followed through a passage and opened the door when the air just rushed past them and was sucked out into a large breach in the next room. Twilight visibly panicked as her suit sealed itself against the vacuum but Isaac put a hand on her back to comfort her.

"Relax, our suits will seal automatically once they detect a hull breach."

Twilight gasped. Half of the storage room they were situated in had been blown to pieces, exposing whatever had been inside to the unforgiving cold of space. The very space she was staring at right now in awe.

She moved to the very edge of what was left of the room to stand on, so that a single extra step into the beyond would leave her body flying away into the infinite. Before her was literally nothing. The vast empty void of the Universe was stretched before her, black as a perfect night in the wilderness. Scattered amongst this nothingness twinkled the stars, nothing but small white specks dotting the dark canvas. She knew that a single star was titanic in size compared to a planet, but here they were so distant you could barely see them. Twilight loved astronomy, and to see everything form such a point of view was like a school filly's dream come true.

And below her was the majestic Aegis VII. The planet shone a ominous crimson red in the light from the nearby star. She brought up her hoof. The celestial body seemed only roughly eight times as big as her limb from here. The perspective was a bit dizzying, so she brought down her leg again.

Sure, Twilight could already boast that she knew every constellation in the Equestrian skies by heart, or that she was the first pony to have actually travelled through space: but there was something so undeniably fascinating with being in the cold void itself. There were no sounds but the gentle, constant beeps of her suit's heart monitor, no distractions but herself, the constant emptiness of the Universe and her protective RIG to shield her from suffocation and hypothermia. For a little moment, Twilight simply forgot the Ishimura and the terrible flesh eating monsters hunting her, and simply stared in wonder at the spectacle of creation.

"USG Ishimura to Twilight Sparkle, come in Twilight."

Her reverie was aborted by a slightly amused Isaac. She frowned irritably at his interruption but he just chuckled.

"It's quite the spectacle isn't it? Come on, our air supply isn't going to hold forever."

* * *

"_Entering Zero gravity._"

They entered a massive cylindrical chamber. Several free-floating boxes and badly mutilated bodies stood as a reminder to the Zero-G chamber's peculiar physics. Twilight stared around in wonder and confusion at the spectacle. Their objective was clearly in front of them, at the opposite side of the room, but there seemed to be no clear way to cross... Until Twilight realized their method of movement.

"We're going to jump, aren't we?"

Isaac nodded vigorously. "Yup! Just push yourself with your legs in the right direction and Newton's first law should take care of the rest."

"Newton's what law?"

"Uh... I'll explain later."

Isaac bent his legs and pushed himself firmly in the direction above them. His grav-boots unmagnetized themselves and let the engineer sail gently towards the "roof", twisting his body to align it with what now counted for him as the "floor". He gripped onto the plating and set down his boots again smoothly as they attached themselves to the chamber's walls with a hiss. Isaac straightened himself and waved to Twilight, although upside down from her perspective. She couldn't help but find the situation mildly humorous.

"Alright! Just don't forget to turn around so that your feet face the ground!"

Twilight swallowed nervously and prepared her jump accordingly before pushing herself in Isaac's direction. Vertigo overtook her momentarily as her brain's motor functions were disoriented, but she tried to twist her body in mid-flight. Easier said than done; her landing was rough as she hit her side against the wall but managed to attach herself back without to much problem. Isaac walked up to her and punched her shoulder gently.

"Not bad for a first time."

Twilight turned her head around everywhere. "Ugh, it's so confusing! We are technically upside down, but I don't feel like I'm facing the wrong way! What are we even standing on? The walls? The ground? The roof? Is there any right direction at all?"

Her confusion earned her a laugh from Isaac. "Don't overanalyze it Twi. Just roll with it."

A little walk and another jump later (_I'm literally walking upside down like an insect,_Twilight mused), they emerged on the Zero-G storage room and retrieved the shock pads. Thankfully for them they managed to find some clean water bottles and energy bars in the lockers too, which they devoured greedily. To them, their measly meal felt like a luxury as the chocolate covered müsli bars melted in their mouths.

_And Celestia knows I've deserved it,_ Twilight thought as she swallowed her third bar and moaned in pleasure at the taste.


	7. Intensive Care, final part

"I hate this!"

Twilight broke into a sprint as fast as her legs allowed her, the scorpion barely missing its lunge at the unicorn.

_Of course we get ambushed in Zero Gravity of all things!_

She turned around and unleashed a freezing spell towards the Necromorph. Her shot was lucky, hitting the thing dead in flight towards her. Twilight then proceeded to grab an errant gas canister and threw it at her victim. The explosion shredded the undead being apart.

Isaac was on the other hand preoccupied with two lurkers, jumping upwards to avoid the mutants' razor sharp projectiles. The engineer fumbled around briefly upon his rather ungraceful landing before pulling out his plasma cutter and slicing off the appendages of one of the Necromorphs. The creature squealed and died, the body floating away into the Zero-G chamber.

The other baby growled and lunged at Isaac. However, he was prepared for it; as soon as the creature closed up on him, he dodged the tentacles and grabbed them in midair, giving them a sharp tug. The abomination was helpless to twist its way out of Isaac's grip thanks to the nonexistent g-forces and was flung hard towards the floor before receiving Issac's boot in the face, ultimately killing it.

The duo exhaled in relief when no more Necromorphs were present. The creatures had attacked them as soon as they had left the storage room, forcing them to fight in accordance the difficult and dizzying art of Zero-G combat. While Isaac's time among the Merchant Marines had granted him a good understanding of how to battle in the lack of gravity, Twilight had mostly ran around the therapy chamber in a panicked state, completely forgoing the fact that she could jump between surfaces as she tried to get her bearings, find the hostiles and fight them at the same time with no experience whatsoever.

She blushed under her helmet. _I pretty much achieved nothing but make myself dizzy_, Twilight thought as she suppressed another wave of nausea. The unicorn's fighting pattern had basically boiled down to fire a magical blast (and missing) before running halfway across the entire room in a loop. In the end, she had sprinted six laps in a circular fashion while trying to flee from her hunters. It would have been comical if not for the fact that the Necromorphs had been rather insistent on killing her. In short, it didn't do wonders to her pride.

She panted one final time and tried to work out her bearings before carefully following Isaac out of the chamber and into the vacuum again.

"_Exiting zero gravity._"

"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Isaac?"

"Trust me, I'm an engineer."

The unicorn observed as the human sprayed the contents of the thermal flask onto the barricade, being careful not to accidentally let the flammable material drip onto his suit. After having emptied the can, he motioned to Twilight to give him the shock pad. He gazed a bit at his handiwork before clearing his throat and activating the defibrillators, preparing himself to ignite the barrier.

"Well, here goes nothing..."

He brought up the pads and squeezed the triggers.

The startling bright flash was gone almost as soon as it began. The duo observed the results: the entire barricade had indeed burned to cinders, giving them free access to the body of Captain Matthius.

"_Okay, you're through,_" Hammond chimed in on their communicators. "_Should be clear from there to the morgue. Remember, the codes are on the Captain's body._"

Isaac and Twilight immediately readied themselves. The time for pleasantries was over: now they would have to witness more of the Ishimura's casualties... And potentially start carving their way through the undead flesh monsters again. As if to reinforce the point, the hallway in front of them was badly lit, the lights flickering at irregular intervals.

They advanced through the corridor and entered the Emergency wing of the ship. Isaac knew something was wrong immediately: all personnel working on the Planet Crackers were more or less under risk of suffering from equipment related accidents, so he had expected the room to be filled with casualties. Only the bodies of one nurse and a badly mangled patient were left in the room. He shivered; all the blood trails led into the vents again...

Something caught Isaac's gaze and his heart skipped a beat. The visage of his beloved Nicole adorned the screen of a still functioning computer. He examined the display but was disappointed to see that it was only a recording, with no identification on how old it was. He pressed play.

"_This is Senior Medical Officer Nicole Brennan, transmitting ship wide. We need more help! We don't have the resources to deal with this many cases. Nobody will tell us what's happening! These wounds...we're not equipped to deal with this many..._" There were screams off-screen, and the sound of banging on metal. "_God... Get him to the table! Hold him! Nurse, you hold him down! Christ! End recording!_"

Isaac buried his head in his hands and sighed while Twilight put a comforting hoof on his arm.

"_That was Nicole, right?_" Hammond asked. "_I can't tell from here when that log was made. I'm sure she's around here somewhere._"

Isaac nodded wordlessly as a thanks towards Twilight.

The rest of the facility was in a similar state to the rest of the Medical Deck. Blood splatters, tortured bodies, trashed equipment, and moans from the next room.

_Wait, moans?_

Twilight advanced slowly towards the door to Intensive Care and opened it. She immediately regretted it.

A broken woman, more resembling a corpse than a living being, was occupied with slicing up a still living, but limbless, man laying onto an operating table with a rusty saw. The nurse cackled cruelly as her victim was powerless to stop her, hacking up his guts and ripping apart his flesh. His incessant but weak cries of pain echoed into the operation room, making fear seep into the bones of unicorn who was forced to watch the macabre spectacle.

The patient gurgled one final time before succumbing to his grievous wounds. Twilight was frozen in fear when the ghoulish woman continued her cackling and turned towards her; glazed, milky eyes piercing Twilight's soul with her maddened glare. The nurse giggled again and raised her saw clearly in front of a horrified Twilight before slicing her own neck off, her limp body falling limp into a growing pool of her own blood.

Twilight's eye twitched and backed away slowly, but stopped shortly after.

She felt the comforting pressure of Isaac's hand on her shoulder. The human let out weary, saddened sound of disgust at the sight of his fallen peers before turning to Twilight. Even tough he bore his helmet she could practically guess the expression hidden behind the glowing cyan lines adorning it.

_Be strong, Twi._

Twilight tore her gaze away from the bodies. She had already promised herself not to disappoint Isaac: she had to keep on fighting for both her own good, the survivors onboard the Ishimura and everypony back home, even if that meant clearing out the entire ship of Necromorphs and the... And the whispers...

_Twilight..._

_Twilight..._

The unsettling feeling of being observed like prey made her involuntarily shudder. The ghostly murmurs that had called her name when she had tried to teleport home forced their way through her memories. She knew there was something on this ship that was disrupting her magic... And it sure in hay didn't feel natural.

Once they left this damned ship though, Twilight knew she would have to speak to the princess about her experiences. She doubted a regular shrink would accept her story (they would probably just label her crazy and ship her off to the asylum directly), and it always felt right to vent her feelings to Celestia. Plus the alicorn was remarkably patient and caring...

Her throat became dry. _Unless she dismisses me as delusional too..._

She shook her head and tried to dismiss it. Hearing voices in her head was worrying, but they had bigger issues at hoof.

It came as no surprise when they discovered the morgue resembled a slaughterhouse. If the corridors of the Intensive Care wing had been filled with bodies, then this must have counted as a mountain; the dead had been ripped out of their caskets and desecrated by the Necromorphs, or simply dragged away. Isaac felt strangely relieved when he saw the corpse of the Captain lying on an operating table behind a thick plexiglas window. Apart from a missing eye, the body of Benjamin Matthius was relatively well preserved.

The now telltale sound of Necromorphs moving through the ventilation reached their ears. Isaac raised his cutter, noting sourly that he had only one functioning plasma battery left. He would have to make it count.

There was one blunder, however, that blew Isaac an Twilight out off the water. When they heard the monsters coming, they were convinced that they would burst out into the morgue room.

They never anticipated a bat-like creature landing in the Captain's room.

The new abomination spread it's leathery wings and pulled up Matthius' body and, much to the survivors' shock, impaled it through the head with a large, sharp tendril. The body convulsed violently as blood and brain matter erupted from the wound like a gruesome fountain. The epileptic movements of the Captain increased, the corpse's hands and arms deforming into wickedly sharp blades, the muscles deforming and rupturing; the flesh underneath blackened and solidified while the previously empty eyes of the Captain were now glowing red.

And worst of all, the body actually _moved_ now.

The former Benjamin Matthius bellowed at the survivors and smashed through the plexiglas window, the infector that was responsible for the man's transformation following close behind. Isaac and Twilight wasted no time in engaging the most immediate threat.

Isaac struck first. The black slasher swung one of its appendages towards the human's head, who ducked in time and instead used the creature's momentum against itself, leaving him a wide opening to cut off the limb with a single cutter blast and stagger the creature. A magic beam sliced through the air and smashed the Necromorph apart.

Their victory was short lived, however. More flesh tearing and bone snapping could be heard, and the duo looked upon in horror as the bat-like Necromorph had turned two more bodies into slashers. As they were properly dispatched by Isaac and Twilight, more shrieks erupted from all around them. Gasping, Isaac realized the gravity of the situation before them.

"Twi, we're in a fucking morgue! The bat-thingy is having early Christmas celebrations in here!"

Twilight released a magical pulse into one of the creatures and nodded, having understood largely what Isaac had said. "I'll try to stop it!"

The engineer returned to his part of the fight. Four of the slashers pounced him. He unloaded a few bursts and managed to kill one before being forced to reload. As he frantically searched for a battery, Isaac suddenly remembered he had no ammo left, and that three Necromorphs were approaching him.

"Oh fuck me!"

As Isaac fought the slashers, Twilight had put her trust in him to hold them back while she tried to find the infector. She caught it bringing down it's tentacle upon another corpse, ready to transform it into another monster. Twilight acted quickly, sending a freezing blast towards the infector.

To her dismay however, the Necromorph dropped the body and dodged the blast while the corpse was encased in ice. It turned its attention to Twilight and pounced, bowling her over in the process. The terrified unicorn tried to stand up but the infector was too fast, pinning her down again with a swipe of its tentacle before raising it. Twilight moved her head to the side barely in time as it struck down. The infector tried to remove it, but in vain; the appendage remained stuck in the floor.

Twilight let her body work solely on instinct, adrenaline coursing through her veins. The Necromorph reared its head back in an attempt to remove the tentacle again, giving her time to roll away. She climbed up on her hooves again and charged the creature, knocking it over with its tentacle still stuck in the ground. The infector still writhed around on the floor, but the unicorn pinned it down, firmly grabbing the appendage with her front hooves and pulling as hard as she could. She paid the creature's screams no heed as she tugged.

"Raaah!"

With a final yank, the limb came off with a sickening crunch. The Necromorph roared in pain again and tried to limp away, but was firmly bucked by Twilight, sending it crashing into an operating table: it did not get back up. The exhausted unicorn observed her handiwork with great shock as the adrenaline wore off, her heart pounding like a hammer in her chest.

_Sweet Celestia, did I just do that?_

Meanwhile, Isaac was not so lucky. He had been forced into vicious hand to hand combat with the remaining Necromorphs, and knew that Twilight was still occupied with the infector. Isaac swung his arm with the cutter in a long arc: one of them jumped back but the other two were hit by Isaac's punch, sending the first one reeling back and making the other one lose his head with a dull splat, much to his surprise.

He retreated back as the now decapitated slasher swung its arms around in the room, trying to hurt the offending engineer. One of its fellow Necromorphs was caught in the attack, slicing the body in two pieces.

Only one abomination remained. This one seemed furious at Isaac and lunged at him, blades held up high. Isaac was sent crashing to the floor, following up with kicking the Necromorph back before it could make another move at him. He quickly scrambled up to his feet and swung his cutter again, making the slasher hit the wall. This was followed up with a fist to the slasher's head.

The creature bellowed and grabbed Isaac, who desperately tried to pry it away while it attempted to stab him with it's claws. The creature surged forward, carrying Isaac with and sending him reeling onto an operating table.

The Necromorph barely had time to try and impale the human before a blast hit it in the chest and killed it. Isaac exhaled in relief and retrieved his plasma cutter again.

"Phew! Thanks Twi, I owe you one."

"Not true," she scolded him. "You dragged me into the elevator, then you killed the first one..."

"You saved me shortly afterwards," he defended, raising his arms.

"...Then you dragged me back to reality twice, both after the Kellion... Exploded..." She added with some difficulty. "...And in the prosthetics labs..."

She gulped before continuing. "Meaning that I owe you, twice. And don't you try to deny it," she added in a smug voice.

They shared a small laugh. Even with a dozen bodies surrounding them in a nightmarish morgue, and with an entire ship filled with Necromorphs determined to kill them, they still tried to lighten the mood up.

_Yep, we really are crazy,_ Twilight chuckled inwardly.

Speaking of bodies, Isaac observed his surroundings and all the corpses lying on the floor in a pile.

"So... Where's the RIG?"


End file.
